March Tickle Trunk Questionnaire

…..or How Well Do You Know Yourself?

Sit down, Mary and answer me this…

Allow me to introduce today’s participant. You can skip right to the questions if you scroll down, or hang in and read about growing up with her. Mary is the oldest of my two big sisters. As a little kid I adored them both. My earliest memory of Mary involves the back of her head as she goes out the door and me hanging on the doorknob, wailing and caterwauling because I want to go with her. On occasion my mother would give in and make her take me (and that’s how I got to know that wailing worked) and I would follow along to be awed by the perfume bottles and nail polishes of some friend’s bedroom. Magical!

Mary was always a willing audience for my theatrical performances; “I’m a little teapot, short and stout” (I’m still short and stout), my imitations of my Sunday school teacher “Poor little Harry will perish without his hat”, and my rendition of Frankie Fontaine doing “Hi Joe.” She taught me my alphabets, how to count, and even a little rudimentary French “Bonjour, je m’apelle Judy” long before I started school. She is a natural born teacher.

A fashion plate at five.

She was also born stylish. She went from bandanas and hairbands and cat’s eye glasses to teasing her hair and blue eye shadow. I was in awe of her Halloween costumes and prom dresses, her purses and especially of her sling back shoes.

Her love of fur collars persisted into her early teens.

Here are a few of my other favourite memories:

Mary cutting my hair. Badly.

Mary making up her own crossword puzzles.

Mary coming home from University with a box full of Christmas gifts wrapped in bright foil paper with coordinating bows that had never been used on another gift. We were still using the flat folded paper that tore at the corners.

Mary coming home from school and asking for money to buy a pair of stovepipe pants which were in style and Dad threatening to go to the basement to fetch some real stovepipes to make her some. Mayhem ensued.

My favourite memory – A late weekday afternoon, wrapping Christmas gifts and we ran out of Scotch tape and Mary and I walked to the drugstore to get some. It was dark and perfectly still and snowing huge fat flakes which drifted lazily down in a magical dance.

But that’s enough about Mary and Me. Here, meet her for yourself in her responses to the Tickle Trunk Questionnaire.

Books that have had a great impression on my life:
“The Boxcar Children” by Gertrude Chandler Warner
“Watership Down” by Richard Adams
“Animal Farm” by George Orwell
“The Bees” by Lalene Paull

You’ll notice that the last three all have animals imbued with human qualities and indicate the same follies of the supposedly smarter human race. You’ll never see bunny rabbits and bees in the same way again! So much violence and love!

8. What movie have you watched the most times? My favourite movie as a child – Heidi (watched many times)

9. What is your ideal Sunday relaxation? Morning: being woken up to read stories in bed to my granddaughters and cuddling – then playing “Ten little monkeys jumping on the bed” ) don’t tell Mommie!

Ideal Sunday relaxation: At cabin, in front of roaring fire, reading, glancing up often to enjoy my view of the ocean, which always calms me, watching the gulls, mergansers, bald eagles flying by, and also sittng on the deck at the cabin on super hot summer days, with the suns rays glancing off the cresting waves, and watching the dragonflies zip aroung me so elegantly and lazily, catching the sums rays on their irridescent bods (Good for what ails you)

13. What would you do on an ideal date? Great dinner, good wine, a fabulous show, and drinks and dancing on a tiny dance floor in a blues and jazz pub

14. What famous piece of art would you most like to own? “Impression Sunrise” – Claude Monet
“American Gothic” – Grant Wood

15. What do you consider the greatest invention of your lifetime? Computer (no more changing those pesky typewriter ribbons)

16. Where do you feel most at home? I feel most at home in my boat, cod fishing out at the head of the bay, with the sun glistening off the water, huge icebergs surrounding us, saddleback gulls waiting for a treat, coming back to the cabin at dusk, heading into a beautiful sunset

Mary’s classic Nfld. motor boat with make and break engine.

Quite a catch. (Him or the fish, Mary?)

Ethereal

Iceberg close to home.

Casting for caplin at Nicky’s Nose Cove

Back to the cabin.

17. If you could invent something, what would it be? Way to achieve world peace (bit idealistic, but it is what it is)

18. If you could ask the queen one question, what would it be? Why haven’t you changed your hairstyle in 70 years and why don’t you smile more (not the uptight British anal-retentive smirk that we usually see)

Young Liz.

Old Liz

19. What song defines your life? “Goin up the bay on a summy day” by Buddy Wasisname and the Other Fellers

20. What is your mother’s best trait? Love of StorytellingFathers? beautiful “Paul Newman” twinkling blue eyes when he talked about doing something he loved

What I’m Reading Now

The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje ♥♥♥♥
Half Broken Things by Morag Joss ♥♥♥½
Irreplaceable by Stephen Lovely ♥♥
The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter ♥♥♥½
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner ♥♥♥♥♥
The Devil You Know by Wayne Johnson ♥♥♥
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent ♥♥♥♥
Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes ♥♥♥♥½
A Voyage Long and Strange by Tony Horwitz ♥♥♥♥
Yellow Crocus by Laila Ibrahim ♥♥♥½
No. 13 Washington Square by Leroy Scott ♥♥½
Christopher Carson by John SC Abbott♥♥♥♥
Lucien Freud, Eyes Wide Open by Phoebe Hoban ♥♥½
The Blessing Way by Tony Hillerman ♥♥♥♥
An American Childhood by Annie Dillard ♥♥♥♥
Brunelleschi's Dome by Ross King ♥♥♥♥
Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver ♥♥♥
The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (audio) ♥♥♥♥
Into the Deep Unknown - Land of the Tent Dwellers by Mike Parker♥♥♥ (great [pictures)
The Death of Kings by Bernard Cornwell (audio)♥♥♥1/2
Back Fire by Catherine Coulter (audio book)♥♥♥
In the Mersey Woods published by the paper company
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood (audio book)♥♥♥♥
The Kite Runner (audio book)♥♥♥♥♥
Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver ♥♥♥1/2
The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver ♥♥♥1/2
The Round House by Louise Erdrich ♥♥♥♥
Empire Falls by Richard Russo ♥♥♥
Dear Everbody by Anne Budgell ♥♥♥♥
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera ♥♥
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner ♥♥♥♥♥
Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante
Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi ♥♥♥♥♥